The Verge's Jennifer Pattison Tuohy joins the show to discuss a bunch of updates in the smart home world, including what's new from Google Home and in iOS 18, plus some big news in the world of smart locks and video doorbells. Then, The Verge's Chris Welch comes on to test some new earbuds, and see which pair has the best sound – and the best mic. After that, a new take on the Vergecast's chaotic wearables theory.
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TechTranscript
00:00:00Welcome to The Verge cast, the flagship podcast of Powered Front Doors, which is a thing that I
00:00:05just learned exists thanks to this episode. I'm your friend David Pierce, and I am cooped up
00:00:11inside and have been for several days. Obviously, a lot of people in the U.S. have been really
00:00:16horribly affected by Hurricane Helene. I hope you're all doing okay. Our thoughts are obviously
00:00:22with everyone dealing with all of that. Where I am, it's been fine. It's just basically been
00:00:27raining for four days, and my kid has been out of daycare, and he's been sick. And so,
00:00:32it's just been a lot of inside time. It's been a lot of running around in the basement. It's
00:00:37been a lot of watching the same old McDonald How to Farm YouTube video over and over. It's just
00:00:42been a lot. You just grow to appreciate outside more and more. I'm in a real touch grass moment,
00:00:49except it's still raining, so there will be no grass touching for a little while. Even the dog
00:00:54over there is starting to lose it a little bit, I think. But anyway, luckily, we have the Vergecast
00:00:59to keep us on track and doing stuff. Today, we have two things we're going to do. First,
00:01:05we're going to catch up with Jen Tuohy about all things smart home. There's been a lot this summer.
00:01:09She was at IFA looking at smart home gadgets. We have some protocol news with Matter and Thread.
00:01:14We have a bunch of stuff going on with Google and Apple and software updates everywhere and
00:01:19all kinds of fun stuff to talk about. So, we're just going to kind of play around Robin and catch
00:01:22up with her. Then, we're going to talk to Chris Welch about this new run of earbuds that we have
00:01:27this year. Apple just released some new ones. Google released some new ones. Samsung released
00:01:31some new ones. Bose released some new ones. I'm missing some. Oh, Nothing just released some new
00:01:35ones that I'm really interested in. So, we're going to talk to him about this new slate of earbuds,
00:01:40but also we're going to do a mic test because, as I continue to say and really strongly believe,
00:01:45microphones matter. The way we talk to AI, the way we talk to the assistants on our devices,
00:01:50the way we talk to each other, microphones in these earbuds matter a lot and they don't get
00:01:56talked about enough. So, we're going to do what we occasionally do on this show, which is put some
00:02:00really, really bad audio into the podcast. I'm sorry in advance, but we do it for the greater
00:02:06good. We also have a really fun hotline question. Lots to get to today. Super fun episode,
00:02:11but first, I have to go outside. I'm just going to go stand in the rain like a 1990s rom-com star
00:02:18and just like stare upwards for five minutes and then we're going to get to it. This is The
00:02:22Verge Cast. We'll be right back. Welcome back. All right. I've been outside. I breathed in the
00:02:29air. I got all wet. Overrated. Very happy to be back indoors looking at screens. Anyway, let's
00:02:34get to it. First up, we're going to talk about smart home stuff because it's been a minute since
00:02:39we talked about smart home stuff. And normally, I like to have The Verge's Gen 2-y on every once
00:02:44in a while just to basically sadly ask her why matter isn't better and why the smart home isn't
00:02:49fixed. And we're going to do a little bit of that today. But there's also been a surprising amount
00:02:54of interesting smart home news that kind of points to something bigger going on. There have been a
00:02:59lot of new gadgets for your front door, which I find fascinating, smart locks and video doorbells
00:03:04and that kind of stuff. So I think that whole space is really interesting. I want to talk about
00:03:07that. We've seen some new software from Google and Apple that makes it easier to administer your
00:03:13smart home, which I think is a really big deal. And we have some protocol news. Because matter
00:03:19continues to be chaos, we have to talk about the chaos that is matter. Let's get to all of that
00:03:25with Jen. We're just going to bounce through a whole bunch of news. I'm very excited about it.
00:03:28Let's get into it. Jen, hello.
00:03:31Hi, David. Pleasure to be back. It's been too long.
00:03:34It has been too long. You're going through a hurricane right now. We should just tell the
00:03:37people that if you suddenly disappear and this segment is four minutes long, it's because you're
00:03:41deep in hurricane times. Are you holding up okay?
00:03:44Helene has been paying us a visit this morning. Thankfully, we're not as bad off as the poor
00:03:49people in Florida, but it's been a bumpy ride so far. So fingers crossed, we'll make it through.
00:03:55For sure. I find myself very curious in the middle of all this. What happens
00:03:59to your smart home situation when your power goes off and then comes back on?
00:04:05Is it just full insane chaos every time the power blips in your house right now?
00:04:09Yeah, because everything talks to me. It is kind of scary, actually, especially when it
00:04:14happens in the middle of the night. Because so many things will be like, you know, connection
00:04:19restored or offline and voices from every corner of the house. Robots in particular, robot vacuums,
00:04:28cameras, security systems. It gets a little chaotic. And then obviously the notifications
00:04:33on my phone are like ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, offline, offline, offline.
00:04:37You can turn those off, but because obviously I'm testing these things, I always turn on all
00:04:41the notifications. And then I have, you know, it gets a little crazy, especially cameras,
00:04:48because when they go offline, they send you alerts and then they come back online.
00:04:51So this morning, I was woken up numerous times throughout the night when the power went out.
00:04:55Thankfully, though, smart lights have managed to fix the problem where they all turn on
00:04:59automatically when the power comes back. And that used to be a terrible issue where,
00:05:04you know, they would reset to default and like all the lights in your bedroom would turn on at
00:05:082 a.m. when the power came back on. That's no longer a problem. Thankfully, that is really
00:05:14like the first act of a horror movie is all of that stuff happening or going crazy.
00:05:20Well, I'm glad it seems to be settling. So I'm glad I'm glad everything's OK.
00:05:24Yes, I'm doing good.
00:05:26We have some stuff to catch up on. We do. We have not done our
00:05:29Gen Why Isn't Matter Solving All of My Problems check in in a while. So we're going to do that.
00:05:34But you mentioned right before we started recording that you're working on a smart lock
00:05:38thing. And I just want to start I want to run a theory by you. And then I want you to tell me
00:05:43what you think. And then we're going to talk about some new stuff around. OK, I think you could make
00:05:47a pretty compelling case that your front door is the most interesting space in the smart home right
00:05:53now between what's going on with video doorbells, what's going on with smart locks. That stuff is
00:05:59mainstream and very good and suddenly super interesting in a way that I feel like everything
00:06:05else in the smart home is kind of cool, kind of a mess. And it's like your front door is where cool,
00:06:10interesting, good, smart stuff is happening right now. What do you think? Good theory? Bad theory?
00:06:14No, I agree. I think the front door always sort of actually always has been a really key part
00:06:19because it's something that appeals to everyone. I mean, smart lights are really fun. Robot vacuums
00:06:25have large appeal, but, you know, they are still niche. But the concept of just easy access to
00:06:32your home, not worrying about losing keys, being able to let people in, unlock your door remotely,
00:06:38know who's at your front door. You know, the front door is the gateway to your house.
00:06:42And having the capability to sort of remotely monitor it, always know what's going on,
00:06:47having control over the entrance to your home is something that everyone is interested in.
00:06:51Even people that live in apartments, you know, there's smart entryways, you know,
00:06:56because smart home, quite often apartment dwellers sort of get left out a little bit,
00:07:00but not when it comes to smart locks and smart doorbells. There's lots of devices tailored to
00:07:05those types of living scenarios. And it is an area that there's a lot going on right now. There's a
00:07:11lot of change happening, but it's also an area that's always had quite a lot of challenges,
00:07:18primarily because of power. And that's an area we're seeing more sort of innovation in. I think
00:07:24it will take a while. There was the smart door that came out a couple of years ago that was like
00:07:28wired for power, which everyone kind of laughed about a little bit. But, you know, I think
00:07:34ultimately most homes, new homes as they're built or homes as they're remodeled, wiring your door
00:07:40for power is going to make more and more sense, both for lighting and for powering video doorbells,
00:07:46for powering your door locks, because battery power in the door lock is probably one of the
00:07:51biggest pain points with smart door locks. You know, most sort of ordinary people who decide
00:07:57to get a smart door lock, you know, when they realize they have to start changing the batteries
00:08:01every three to six months, it's like, this is not smart. This is a pain, especially if it locks you
00:08:07out because, you know, you've ignored the warnings after the seventh or eighth time that they've
00:08:11sent them to you. So it's interesting to find, you know, to see the solutions that are coming
00:08:17around there. And then we've also got UWB is a new technology we're seeing in door locks. Apple
00:08:24quite recently announced that they were adding capability for unlocking smart door locks using
00:08:30UWB chip in the iPhone. So we're starting to see sort of a real shift there. What's interesting
00:08:37about that is the sort of the hands-free notion of, you know, being able to access your home
00:08:42without even having to even tap your watch to the door, let alone pull your key out, because UWB
00:08:48radio will automatically sense that you're there, connect to your door and unlock it for you. So
00:08:54there's so much interesting going on, but you need the power. And actually something I've been
00:08:58testing recently, which sort of ties into all of this is wireless power. I'm testing something
00:09:03called WeCharge, which is a wireless power transmitter, and it can wirelessly power a
00:09:09door lock that I've been testing, which is by a company called Alfred.
00:09:11Wait, this has been around forever, right? I feel like I've been hearing like science project
00:09:15things about wireless power for like the entire time I have been covering technology. Is this
00:09:22for real now? Like, is somebody actually going to ship this thing to me at some point?
00:09:26Yeah, well, you can buy this right now with this door lock. It's not sort of off the shelf. You
00:09:32kind of have to get in touch with the company and they can arrange for the installation. So it's a
00:09:36little laborious, but I was talking to the founder and he said they've actually developed a retrofit
00:09:42design so that you can just plug a little transmitter into power, put it on a shelf,
00:09:48and then plug a receiver into your power port of, say, your door locks. A lot of door locks
00:09:52have power ports, and then that can actually end up allowing you to wirelessly power your door.
00:09:58Now, wireless power, I think, is maybe not the solution ultimately to all of these issues.
00:10:06I think wired is always generally going to be more reliable, but it requires so much more effort for
00:10:13installation. So I feel like there's always maybe going to be a middle ground, especially for
00:10:19retrofit. You're going to be having the options to do something other than use, I mean, have you
00:10:26have a smart door lock? I don't. It's actually the one and only smart home device that I think
00:10:32my wife would allow me to install. But you haven't. So I'm going to do it. It's just like,
00:10:38I'm at the point where I'm procrastinating painting the things, so I'm not sure I'm a good
00:10:43version of being ahead of things on home projects, but it's on the list. It's on the list.
00:10:47Well, and the battery is an issue. I mean, the August is a great smart lock, for example, but
00:10:54you have to change the batteries every two to three months. Some smart locks will go at least
00:10:58a year, and a year sounds great, but actually that's still a lot. I mean, it's like, do you
00:11:02remember to change your smoke alarm batteries every year? I remember when it beeps at me at
00:11:07two o'clock in the morning. That's when I remember to change the smoke alarm. Yeah.
00:11:10So I mean, if we could have wireless power or wired for power built into our homes so that
00:11:17you can have, you can power your video doorbell, you can power your door lock, you can power some
00:11:21lighting around your door, maybe even your security panel. You know, it just, I can see sort
00:11:26of a much easier transition to these types of devices rather than having to constantly mess
00:11:32with them and recharge or put new batteries in. And so I go through so many batteries and I hate
00:11:38it. I'm like, ah, this e-waste. So it's an interesting space for sure.
00:11:43Too many of these devices also make that part really complicated. Because I think the battery
00:11:49life thing is really interesting to me. Because I think like, I've owned a home for three years
00:11:54now and I'm still discovering all the things you're supposed to do on like a routine basis.
00:11:59And I just like, I have furnace air filters, right? That I just am supposed to change every
00:12:03three months. And I more or less remember every three months. That's fine. It's every three months.
00:12:08It takes 30 seconds. It's fine. But I feel like the problem with way too many of these
00:12:13smart home gadgets is not just that you have to charge it or reinstall batteries or whatever.
00:12:20It's that that process is annoying. And this has probably gotten a lot better with these
00:12:23gadgets over time, but it feels like you basically have to like unmount the thing,
00:12:27charge the thing, reinstall the thing, reconnect the thing, which probably won't work the first.
00:12:33So there's just, there's all these little pieces that it's like, if I could just walk up to it with
00:12:36a AA battery, like pull a thing down, stick the battery in and put it back on, I'm good. I will
00:12:40do that three times a year. But that is not what the process is.
00:12:43And that's generally not what the process is.
00:12:44And it feels like that to me is the solvable problem, right? Like wireless power is like
00:12:48a miracle of, of chemistry that I hope we accomplish sometime, but just like
00:12:52make it easier to change the batteries. That seems easy.
00:12:56That is true. There are some where you have to get like a special tool and it's like, no.
00:13:00Yeah. That's just silliness as far as I'm concerned.
00:13:03Yeah. Although, but speaking of wireless power, I was just at IFA in Berlin and they,
00:13:08the Wireless Power Consortium have launched the first spec for key wireless power.
00:13:14That's wireless power for kitchen appliances. Now not necessarily ovens and fridges,
00:13:20cause you don't really need that, but for your countertop gadgets, so air fryers, microwaves,
00:13:25blenders, kettles, so that, you know, you, it's basically induction power.
00:13:31You have induction coils underneath your counter, which can be retrofit.
00:13:35Also can work with retrofitted induction cooktops.
00:13:40There are some new ones coming out that have this capability built in
00:13:44and your countertop or induction cooktop can power your blender or air fryer.
00:13:51And you, they showed me a demo at IFA where you just basically put the appliance on the countertop
00:13:57and it will turn it on and it will blend or cook or whatever it is you need it to do.
00:14:02And what's meant, you know, power in the kitchen is a challenge. There's, you know,
00:14:07never enough outlets. The cord never goes far enough where you are trying to reach.
00:14:12I really do think the thing where everyone has three gadgets and two outlets is like a
00:14:17completely universal experience of being a person in the world in a kitchen. Like I can tell,
00:14:23I can picture in my head the Tetris I have to do every time I make coffee just in order to have
00:14:29the grinder and the kettle and the milk frother, which is my favorite fancy gadget of all time.
00:14:36I have to just, I know which one is which by feel. I could do all that like in the dark now
00:14:41and it's ridiculous and bad because it's three things and two outlets. And if you
00:14:45can solve that problem for me, I'm in. I love this idea.
00:14:47You're a happy person. I know. Me too. I have the same issue. And I also got recently redid
00:14:54my kitchen and just still, even though I asked the electrician to put in as many
00:14:58outlets as he could, I still don't have enough outlets. And this, you know, again,
00:15:03a lot of this feels very much in the future, but there are, I can see a lot of benefit here,
00:15:10especially in the way that your new, the, obviously it does require all new appliances,
00:15:16but the way that they are manufactured, because they don't need cords, which means they don't
00:15:20need any open access to them. They don't have batteries in. It's not a battery charging. It's
00:15:27not like Qi charging, which powers the battery. This is just direct power transfer. So the device
00:15:34itself still kind of weighs the same. There's not a giant battery in there, but it's completely
00:15:38sealed. So the gentleman I was talking to, he was like, you know, manufacturers can design,
00:15:42say your blender so that you could just put the entire thing in the dishwasher because there's no
00:15:47open ports. And that also could reduce things like wear and tear because quite often it's the
00:15:52power supply that goes first on the, on a lot of these devices and these gadgets in your kitchen.
00:15:57Um, so, and it's, they also said it's only 10% less efficient than wired power. So, um,
00:16:04it's pretty good. Yeah. I think the future of no wires anywhere in our house is kind of an
00:16:09interesting one. Oh, I agree. I also think I, I like, I admire your optimism. And also I feel
00:16:15like I've been burned by wireless power at this point too many times that, uh, I'll believe it
00:16:19when I see it, but I do think the, the kitchen as a thing with like mostly stationary things
00:16:26feels like a good use for that. As opposed to like, you can charge your phone wirelessly. And
00:16:30it's like, that's a lot harder than you think it is, but I can just like, I can set this down
00:16:34and it will power. It feels more doable. I'm excited about that. It feels, it feels pretty
00:16:39smart. Yeah. That's, that's very cool. I will say we should, we should switch gears, but the fact
00:16:43that we now have Qi, Qi, and we, no, this is bad. Everybody, you have done this wrong. Let's,
00:16:52let's, let's all come together and figure out one rhyme that we can do together for wireless power.
00:16:58Yes, I agree. So you're, you're doing a big update to the, the smart lock buying guide,
00:17:04right? Give us a preview. What's your favorite one right now? Um, still a big fan of Yale, um,
00:17:09the Yale Assure 2, uh, because it comes in so many different flavors. It kind of fits everyone's
00:17:15needs. Um, so Yale, if you're not familiar, has these swappable modules. So depend, if you decide
00:17:21to change your smart home setup, you know, you've gone from Z-Wave to Apple home or Google home,
00:17:27you can easily pop in a different module and be able to have compatibility, which is nice.
00:17:33Although a lot of the locks I tested do work sort of universally with different platforms.
00:17:38Um, but they're also matter is sort of, is slowly coming into the smart lock space,
00:17:44which will help with compatibility. Although, I mean, a lot of people who buy smart locks,
00:17:51it's really just for that. It's easier for me to get into my house. I don't have to have my key.
00:17:56So you don't necessarily need to set it up with your smart home platform. But that's again,
00:18:00what I like about Yale is it gives you multiple options. Um, you've got fingerprint access,
00:18:05you've got keypad access, you've got lock key, if you really insist on using the key.
00:18:11Um, and then also it has the auto unlock feature. So if, um, which is again,
00:18:17this hands-free concept, um, which I've never found work that well for me, but that's also
00:18:22because I have poor cell service and poor GPS in my neighborhood and it relies on that,
00:18:27but it is nice. The concept of having your door automatically unlock as you walk up to it.
00:18:33And so Yale has that feature, which actually got from August, um, which
00:18:37Yale is the sister company of August now. And we haven't had a new lock from August for a while. So
00:18:43I think Yale is kind of now the, the main sort of smart lock space that we're going to see from
00:18:50what was Assa Abloy now owned by Fortune. The whole smart lock space has got quite complicated.
00:18:56Um, but Yale, uh, yeah, Yale has some really good stuff. They actually just released a new
00:19:01retrofit locks, which kind of replaces the original iconic August retrofit lock,
00:19:07which has been my long been my number one pick for your best retrofit lock.
00:19:11And just to clarify what retrofit means, there are two types of smart locks. There's a full
00:19:15deadbolt replacement, which is what most of the Yale is sure two locks are. So that replaces your
00:19:20entire lock. So you're going to have a different lock on the front and on the back, a retrofit
00:19:25lock just replaces the back so that you still can use your regular key. And Yale's come out with a
00:19:31new, um, retrofit lock called the Yale approach, and you just replace the back portion to add
00:19:37smarts to your lock. And that's really helpful for people who are renting and can't swap out
00:19:41their lock. And also if you have a nice lock set and you don't want a kind of ugly looking.
00:19:47Smart lock on the front of your door. And, um, they've come out with a good solution and we've
00:19:52seen this a lot now, and I've tested a lot of these for the new update to the buying guide,
00:19:57key pads that go with retrofit locks so that you can still use a key code or a fingerprint
00:20:04to unlock the lock without, because that was always an issue with retrofit locks.
00:20:09You couldn't actually control it from the outside other than using a key or an app.
00:20:14And when you get to your front door, you don't want to have to pull out your phone
00:20:17to unlock your door. No, but then just pull out your key. It's actually simpler to have keys at
00:20:21that point. It's easier to pull out your key. Right now. So the Yale approach comes with a key
00:20:27pad that has a fingerprint reader and a key pad built in. So you can use either of those options.
00:20:32And the nice thing about these key pads is you don't have to put them like on your door
00:20:36or next to your door. They have quite long range. So you can kind of have it tucked away and
00:20:40still have your front door look like a normal front door. Um, so, and I've seen, there's a
00:20:45couple other companies, a Cara has a new retrofit lock that I've been trying. And switch bot also
00:20:50has another one that all come with these. Bluetooth key pads, um, which I think is really
00:20:55kind of a nice upgrade. And a lot of those also work with Apple home key, which is new again,
00:21:01in the retrofit space and being able to use home key, which people that use it swear by it. They
00:21:06say it's the absolute favorite way of getting into a smart lock because you can put your home key
00:21:11on your watch up to the lock, or you can use your phone. Um, obviously phone again, not necessarily
00:21:17easier than key, but watch quite easy. So, um, yeah, lots of great options in the lock space.
00:21:23Right now we're seeing new smart locks come out almost daily. It's kind of a bit overwhelming.
00:21:29It really does seem like that. Well, and I think part of me thinks it's, it's because
00:21:33of the thing you just mentioned a minute ago is that these are not devices that have to like
00:21:38have a grand vision of how do they fit into an ecosystem and like tell you a big story about
00:21:43routines in your smart life. And like, you can build that stuff if you want,
00:21:47but this thing is just like, it's, it makes it easier to get inside of your house,
00:21:50which is just like the single most mainstream home use case that anyone has. Everyone needs
00:21:56to get into their house. That is a thing that happens when you have a house of any kind.
00:22:00And so I think that stuff is, is very cool. Cause it's like in a, in a sort of increasingly messy
00:22:06idea of how everything works together. That's one thing that just doesn't have to, it can,
00:22:10it can completely do its job completely on its own. And I think as we get through this messy
00:22:16matter phase, I can see why that would be very enticing to any company that wants to build this
00:22:20stuff. Uh, but let's talk about matter. You, you mentioned where we are with some of the,
00:22:24the protocol stuff. And I think, uh, Google has made some big changes. Apple has made some big
00:22:29changes where it feels like we've had some good momentum on the, how you control all of this
00:22:35stuff and how it all works together. But let's start with the protocol stuff. Uh, there was a
00:22:38big threads update this summer thread. Don't put the S on the end. Cause that just confuses everyone
00:22:43and everyone else. I'm writing about just the one thread. There was a big thread with a D at the
00:22:50end, uh, update this summer. There's been some ongoing matter news. Catch us up. Where are we
00:22:55in the protocol world? Yeah. Well, okay. Just before we jump into those protocols, there is
00:23:01one protocol I should mention before we move on from smart locks. Is it another wireless charging
00:23:05protocol? How much, where's the wireless power coming from this time? No, no, no. This is a Lero.
00:23:11So this is tied to matter, but this is the new smart lock protocol. Um, David's just put his
00:23:18head down someday. You're going to come on the show and just make all of this stuff up and I'm
00:23:22not going to know, and I'm going to feel very stupid at the end. Um, but no, this ties into
00:23:26what we were just talking about and what we're about to talk about. So good segue, but a Lero
00:23:31is the new, um, access control standard from the CSA, which is the organization behind matter
00:23:37connectivity standards Alliance. And this is why we're seeing so much movement in the lock space,
00:23:42because it's actually going to help standardize the way we access smart locks, not just in our
00:23:48homes, but maybe even in like our businesses and apartments and everywhere. So, um, we're waiting
00:23:55for the standard to actually be released. It's likely to involve UWB, which we've discussed,
00:24:00um, as well as NFC, which is the tap, which is what home key uses. And, um, we actually just
00:24:07saw our very first UWB supporting lock get released this last month, although it won't
00:24:14work with a Lero. So it's like, we've seen a lot of times before horses at the moment,
00:24:22but it's an excitement in the space. Um, and Apple is a huge, um, part of developing the Lero
00:24:29standard as are the big smartphone companies, because basically the idea here is that you'll
00:24:33be able to use your phone or watch to unlock any door. And no matter which operating system you're
00:24:38using or which platform you're using, it's the universal access, just like matter is the
00:24:43universal standard for the smart home. This is like a universal standard for the smart lock,
00:24:47um, which is kind of connecting you into the smart home. So it's separate from, but
00:24:52connected to, um, so this is a space we should be watching quite closely. I think we'll get a
00:24:57lot of movement around CES, um, especially since Apple announced that it's supporting UWB
00:25:02unlocking in Apple home. So anyway, that was just to wrap up smart locks and now into smart home.
00:25:08No, it's good. The answer I've always said is let's invent more protocols. That's what I'm
00:25:13glad that we're continuing on the trend of more protocols. I know, I know, but what it gives me
00:25:21something, it gives me stuff to write about. I know it's true. If, if everybody figures this
00:25:24out, we'll be out of jobs. So like it's, this is for the best. Uh, so, but yeah, the, the talk to
00:25:30me about thread, the D and no S the one, one single thread. Okay. So thread is, um, as I've
00:25:37written about in the past, uh, is one of the two main wireless protocols of for matter. Um, so
00:25:44wifi and thread threads been around for a decade or so prior to matter, but it is, and it was
00:25:50originally developed inside nest along with a few other companies. And it is a low bandwidth, low
00:25:56power protocol developed specifically for IOT devices, which actually is a sort of a first
00:26:01whilst we've got things like Z-Wave and Zigbee, they weren't necessarily designed for the smart
00:26:05home and thread is designed specifically for the smart home. And so it was sort of re relaunched
00:26:10with big fanfare. When matter launched a couple of years ago, I was like, this is going to solve
00:26:14all our problems. Um, because talking about battery life, this is something we've seen
00:26:21throughout the smart home, smart home devices, constantly running out of battery, needing to be
00:26:25charged thread is low power. So supposedly should, especially things like smart door locks should not
00:26:31need to be recharged or have their batteries replaced frequently if they use thread, but we've
00:26:37been having a lot of issues with threads since it kind of launched into the broader smart home
00:26:43space in the last year or two. And just last, no, two weeks ago, just around IFA, when I was at the
00:26:50tech show in Berlin and the thread group launched thread 1.4, which is basically their, um, panacea
00:26:59to all the problems that we've seen so far with thread, um, specifically, uh, around interoperability,
00:27:06which is one of the main points of matters that we're supposed to be solving here. The idea that
00:27:12anything you buy for your smart home, your smart lock, your smart lights, um, should all work
00:27:16together, no matter which phone you use or which platform you use. Um, and so thread uses something
00:27:21called thread border routers to help communicate from your thread device to the internet and to
00:27:26whichever platform you want to use. And this wasn't necessarily the thread group or the thread
00:27:34protocols problem. I'm trying to avoid saying threads problem. Um, sorry.
00:27:42Because, um, every border router is made by a different manufacturer. So you have border routers
00:27:46from Apple. So like your Apple home pod, your Apple TV is a thread border router from Amazon,
00:27:53your Echo, your, um, Echo Show 10, number of devices from Amazon, the Eros are thread border
00:28:00routers, same for Google. But unfortunately these thread border routers didn't talk to each other.
00:28:05Um, and this was causing all sorts of problems because your devices, you'd think you'd connected
00:28:10your device to your smart home, but it was on a different network from say your smart lights might
00:28:15be on a different network from your door lock. So it was, it was causing headaches and problems.
00:28:19And so this 1.4 should, they say, fix that specific issue, but we have to wait. This is,
00:28:27this is the thing with these protocols. They come along promising all these great solutions,
00:28:32and then it's all down to the manufacturers and the platforms to then implement them. Um,
00:28:37so we're going to have to wait for that. So, I mean, I think with, you know, being optimistic,
00:28:42which is definitely my preferred method of approaching, um, we should see some movement
00:28:47by around CES. Um, I think we'll see a lot of products that are coming out with thread 1.4,
00:28:52but still that's a long way away. It is. But I will tell you,
00:28:55here is the thing that gives me optimism is I think the last time you and I talked,
00:29:00my worry was starting to become that this was moving so slowly that everyone is essentially
00:29:07just going to give up on all things matter. And it would be kind of a thing that existed,
00:29:11but nobody really cared about, uh, and thus kind of languished. And it actually doesn't seem like
00:29:16that's the case there. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm missing it, but it doesn't seem like there
00:29:21has been sort of reverse momentum where everybody has just decided to go back to doing their own
00:29:25things. It's just that it's moving slower than we hoped, but it still seems to be actually moving
00:29:30in the right direction, which gives me optimism about the fact that we will get where we want to
00:29:35be. It's just going to take a lot longer than anybody hoped. Yeah, I think, I think that's,
00:29:40that's spot on, but the problem has been, I think around expectation. Um, and a lot of companies
00:29:47kind of jumped on the bandwagon with thread and matter. And we're like, this is our solution.
00:29:52Um, we're going to, you know, make everything work with thread and matter and ship it to our
00:29:57customers. And it's going to be a great experience and specifically companies like Nanoleaf and Eve
00:30:02who are quite well known in the smart home space, but not broadly very well known. And they were
00:30:07sort of seeing this as their opportunity to become more sort of household names because
00:30:12their products can be so much easier to use. And they've really been burned by these things,
00:30:17these protocols not working in the way that it was predicted or promised. And so we have seen
00:30:23a lot of companies kind of walk back from these protocols, at least Nanoleaf specifically created
00:30:29its own protocol, another one, because it's like, we can't rely on thread. It's not that we can't
00:30:36rely on the protocol itself. It's a great protocol is what their CEO, Jimmy Chu told me, but it's the
00:30:42way it's implemented by the platforms. And this all comes back down to this interoperability issue.
00:30:47And there's something you and I've talked about a lot, the different manufacturers, the different
00:30:51platforms playing nicely together, Apple playing nicely with Amazon, Google playing nicely with
00:30:56Samsung. Um, you know, we all worried that that could be the issue eventually. Um, that they,
00:31:02you know, they all got together to start with, but when, when they all going to start going
00:31:05their separate ways and causing issues, and that's where the thread border router issue came
00:31:09from, but they've come back, they said, they're going to work on it. They should hopefully be
00:31:13fixed. But yes, um, right now, if you went all in on thread, or if you went all in on matter,
00:31:20it's not the sort of plan that we were hoping for, but we're getting there and people aren't
00:31:25giving up. You're right. There is momentum. It's just not ready for the real world yet.
00:31:30It's not ready for the people that want a good door lock and a good video doorbell.
00:31:34And we are definitely past the point where a lot of these companies promised us it would work by
00:31:40now and it doesn't. Right. But it will, I still, I still believe that someday it will. And speaking
00:31:46of, last thing we should talk about before I let you go is, uh, there's been some big software
00:31:50changes on that front, right? Like you mentioned HomeKey with Apple, there's some stuff in iOS 18
00:31:56that I think has been really important to the smart home things. Google is doing a bunch of
00:32:01smart home stuff right now with the, with its TV products. I have a TV streamer right over there
00:32:06that you and I both really like. Uh, yes, that feels like it's moving in a really good direction,
00:32:10right? Like the, the stuff is getting built into the devices it needs to get built into.
00:32:14So yes. So the iOS 18 has an update that's specifically designed to address this problem,
00:32:19this problem of, of thread and border routers. Um, because people were buying a thread device,
00:32:24bringing it home and it wasn't working because they didn't have a border router. They didn't
00:32:27know they needed a border router. Because you shouldn't have to know that no one should have
00:32:31to know about border routers. Right. And so as you may recall, um, all iPhone 15 pros and newer
00:32:40have thread radios in and with iOS 18, Apple released an update that allows you to add
00:32:47matter devices directly to your Apple home app without requiring any hub, either a home hub or
00:32:54an, a thread border router. So wifi devices and thread devices can connect using your phone
00:32:59directly. I mean, this isn't an alt, a solution for the longterm because if you want a smart home,
00:33:04you do need a hub, um, for orchestration, but it does solve the problem of, I just bought this
00:33:10cool new smart light and I want to set it up and I don't want to have to go by a thread border
00:33:14router. And that's also an answer to sort of why Apple decided to put thread chips in their
00:33:19iPhones. They are also, which you kind of called, you should, you should take just a mini victory
00:33:23lap on that one because you were, you were way out in front of that whole story. Well,
00:33:27it did make sense. It's, it's, it's confusing a bit though, because people like, Oh, well,
00:33:31doesn't that make your phone a hub and a thread border rack? It's like, well, no, it's not,
00:33:36but it's like a temporary connection that you can use if you don't have anything else. It's like
00:33:43a fallback. Um, and then, but if you do want a thread border router, that's getting easier.
00:33:49There are more and more devices. Like you mentioned, there's the Google streamer that
00:33:53just came out. This is Google's new answer to the Apple TV. Um, and that is a smart home hub
00:34:00as well as a streamer, uh, has thread border router and matter capabilities and also great
00:34:06smart home controls, which I was my favorite thing about this device. We said we both would
00:34:11test it out and reviewed it. And we try all the streamers in our house. And most of my family
00:34:15just ends up using the regular Samsung remote and going to the built-in OS like no, but they
00:34:22all love the streamer and they've all set up their own profiles. And it's like, it's been a huge
00:34:26success in my house. So, um, so, but it's great to see more devices like this that kind of have a
00:34:32good use case in your home, but for every day, like you would go by this because you want a good
00:34:37TV streamer, but it's also going to help if you do want to use a smart home to give you a bit more,
00:34:43um, infrastructure built into your home so that when you come home with that shiny new thread,
00:34:47like Bob, it will work and you didn't have to worry about it. Um, but what, what I'm most
00:34:51excited about right now, um, overall with the smart home is where we're going with generative AI.
00:34:58Um, because, and this is something that Google talked about a lot at its event at what was the
00:35:05last big event they had made by Google. I think that's what they call it. Yeah. Um, basically
00:35:10both Apple and Amazon, we know have kind of struggled in this space. Um, Google says it's
00:35:15about to release some really interesting updates. I'm interested to see who gets there first,
00:35:21but where I see the most interesting use case of generative AI in the smart home is making the
00:35:27smart home easier. It's that natural language that we're being promised, being able to just
00:35:32say, Oh, I'm, I'm a little cold and it's too dark. And your smart home voice assistant knows
00:35:37that it should raise the thermostat and turn the lights up for you. And Google has promised with,
00:35:43um, some new enhancements through Gemini for Google home and the Google assistant that it's
00:35:50going to be bringing these kinds of features to the smart home along with, um, interpretive
00:35:56notifications, which is another thing I'm interested in. Like I mentioned at the beginning
00:36:00of this chat that my smart home, when my smart home cameras send me notifications nonstop,
00:36:06and it's really annoying. So what's happening with Google home is they're using Gemini to
00:36:11sort of filter through your video footage and only send you relevant notifications.
00:36:17Like you can say, I only want to know if this person shows up at my front door or this car
00:36:22shows up at my front door. Um, those kinds of, you know, specific notifications rather than just,
00:36:27Oh, there was a breeze and plastic bag and then back the other way and then back the other way.
00:36:32Wake you up at one o'clock in the morning. So, um, these kinds of sort of quality of life make
00:36:39the smart home so much easier to use, less annoying, um, and more intuitive, I think will
00:36:46really sort of push smart home adoption because there's so many benefits, but like you said at
00:36:52the beginning, just trying to unlock or figure out how to replace a battery. There are too many parts
00:36:57of smart home and home automation that require a lot of time and attention and reading and
00:37:03Googling and watching YouTube videos and reading my articles, which is a good thing. Um, but, um,
00:37:08I think we've, we've seen both Google, Amazon and Apple and Samsung all trying, you know, using
00:37:14generative AI to make this experience a lot smoother and therefore hopefully encourage more
00:37:22people to kind of reap the benefits of what I think is, is a great experience in your home when
00:37:28it all works. I agree. I mean, and it seems like we're presumably only weeks away from Amazon
00:37:35launching the, the generative AI underpinnings of Alexa, which we've been hearing about for a long
00:37:40time ago. Uh, we were at the event. Was that a year ago at this point? Yeah. Yeah. So, and is that
00:37:49the same kind of stuff that you think we're going to see? Like, I think honestly, if, if Google
00:37:53assistant and Alexa both get even kind of a pretty good version of what you just described, that
00:37:59instantly upgrades like many, many millions of people's smart home lives, which I think is very
00:38:04exciting. Very much so. Yeah. I mean, Amazon promised, you know, they launched all of this
00:38:08a year ago and it's taken a long time. It's not here yet. Um, so this is why I'm interested to
00:38:12see when Google is actually going to implement what they've promised and Apple hasn't even
00:38:16mentioned the smart home. Um, you know, none of it's Apple intelligence or Siri improvements are
00:38:21specifically for the smart home. It is a difficult space. Uh, you get, you know, you get hallucinations
00:38:27in the smart home and it can go really, really wrong. Um, and this is what speaking to all of
00:38:33the companies involved here, I hear a lot. It's like, it's complicated and hard. So I think we're
00:38:40going to see baby steps. We're going to see, I'm hoping we'll see something from Amazon here. I
00:38:44mean, it's fall. We normally have a fall event. It's kind of later than normal last year. I think
00:38:50it was this week. Um, so, but we know we've, there's been a lot of reporting on the struggles
00:38:56the company's had to really nail this down. And every time I've spoken with an executive at Amazon
00:39:01about the new Alexa, they said, well, we're working on it, but it's very complicated. Um, so
00:39:10yeah, I think it's, it's a struggle. Uh, but when, but if, and when we can see these solutions, I,
00:39:16I really do think it's going to be a game changer for the smart home. It's going to just make it
00:39:20takes it from being something you have to program and fiddle with to something that just works.
00:39:26Uh, if, if they get it right. Yeah. It's remains the biggest question. All right. Well, we're we'll
00:39:32have you back on after all this Amazon stuff happens, because I think in a very real way with
00:39:37all of this stuff, the proof is in the pudding and by the pudding, I mean your house. So we,
00:39:42we will come back and we will do this. Jen, thank you as always. Thank you. All right. We got to
00:39:48take a break and then we're going to come back and we're going to do a mic test. We'll be right back.
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00:42:07learn more. All right, we're back. So if you've been listening to the broadcast for a long time,
00:42:14you know that a thing we like to do occasionally is test the microphones on a bunch of different
00:42:19kinds of headphones. The last one of these I think we did was the face gadgets, the
00:42:25meta Ray-Bans and the Vision Pro and that kind of stuff. And that I thought was actually really
00:42:29interesting. The Ray-Ban meta smart glasses might be the best like body worn mic we've tested yet,
00:42:34which is pretty cool. But this time I want to go through all of the new headphones that have come
00:42:40out from kind of the major headphone companies in the last few months. Because for people who
00:42:45just want like a normal set of wireless earbuds, you're suddenly spoiled for choice, right? There's
00:42:50the new Pixel Buds Pro 2 from Google. There's the AirPods 4 from Apple. Samsung has some new
00:42:54Galaxy Buds Pro. Nothing has the new ear open. Bose has some stuff. There's just a lot of new
00:43:01options on the market. Chris Welch has them all as he is want to do. And so we sent him to a coffee
00:43:07shop and we're going to talk a little bit about the audio quality and his feelings about them
00:43:11overall. But mostly I want to test the microphones because my running theory is that microphones
00:43:16really matter. I mentioned this a bit in the intro, but right now, so much of using your
00:43:21headphones is using them to talk to people or to make videos or to talk to Siri or to do this
00:43:27increasingly multimodal AI stuff that these companies are talking about. Microphones matter
00:43:32and we don't talk about them enough. And I think to some extent that lets these companies off the
00:43:36hook from building better microphones. Like it's not impossible to build a very good microphone.
00:43:41It's just hard. And a lot of these companies care a lot about noise cancellation. They care a lot
00:43:45about sound quality. I think they should care more about mics. So we're going to talk about
00:43:49mics and we're going to see who is doing the best job right now. Chris Welch is sitting in a coffee
00:43:53shop. I assume with lots and lots of headphones around confusing everyone else in the coffee shop.
00:43:59So let's, let's do some testing. Chris Welch. Hello. Hello again. Where are you right now? I
00:44:06feel like I'm growing to like learn the different spots that you are when we test your buds.
00:44:11Where are we? This is my go-to coffee shop in my neighborhood that I come to fairly often and
00:44:17work from. And yeah, it tends to be pretty loud as most Brooklyn coffee shops are.
00:44:24Do they know you there by now? You're like a guy who shows up with a pile of gadgets and
00:44:28takes a bunch of pictures. Like is that, they just, they just understand when you walk through
00:44:31the door. Okay. That's good. I'm glad. So we're here cause we're kind of at the end of this year's
00:44:38cycle of new earbuds. You just published the Pixel Buds Pro 2 review. You have a bunch of
00:44:45them. So we figured this is a good moment to test them. Before we dive in, just give us the list.
00:44:50What are we going to, what are we going to try here? What do we have? We've got the AirPods 4,
00:44:56which I have right now in my ear. So that's what you're getting to start. We've got the Samsung
00:45:00Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, the Pixel Buds Pro 2, the new Bose QuietComfort earbuds that just came out as
00:45:07well. And the Nothing Open, very funky open style earbuds that were just announced as well.
00:45:14I'm very excited about those. I have developed an unnecessary attachment to an obsession with
00:45:21these open earbuds. So I'm very excited to see if those are any good. And I'm glad you started
00:45:26with AirPods. So this is actually good. This is a good first test because I feel like AirPods
00:45:30are a useful control in a lot of this because they're just like the one that everybody has.
00:45:35They sound fine. I described them to somebody the other day as like,
00:45:38the nice thing about AirPods is that you can get them to sound like a C plus in almost any
00:45:43situation. The downside of the AirPods is you cannot get them to sound better than a C plus
00:45:47in any situation. Like perfect scenario, they're going to sound just like this.
00:45:54That's fine, I guess. So here's their normal modes. But on phone calls, you can do the voice
00:45:59isolation feature, which is like machine learning to make you sound even clearer. We're not getting
00:46:04that here, unfortunately, but it does get a little bit better on phone calls.
00:46:10The voice isolation, you can only do, it's like phone calls and FaceTime, right?
00:46:14Yeah. Not here, but you know, they sound fine, which is all you really need, like
00:46:1990% of the time, if you just need a good shot.
00:46:22Yeah, they do the job. All right, well, let's, we've got enough of this. Let's switch to the
00:46:26next one. Let's do, let's do Google next. I think that's a good, if I remember correctly,
00:46:34Google has outperformed my expectations several times on these tests over the last couple of
00:46:40years. So I'm curious about this one. Let's just do it first.
00:46:41We'll see.
00:46:42Yeah.
00:46:42All right, I'll do it.
00:46:43All right, let's do it.
00:46:48All right, hit me.
00:46:49We're back again. These are the new Buds Pro 2. They're smaller and lighter.
00:46:57And the mics have gotten mixed feedback so far.
00:47:03I'm going to go decidedly lower than mixed on this one.
00:47:08Really? That much of a difference from the AirPods?
00:47:10Do you remember when we did a test on the ferry in New York and it was just blindingly obvious
00:47:17how hard some of them were working? Even though they were kind of working and I could kind of
00:47:21hear you, you could hear how hard it was for them to get to that point. That's what I'm getting here
00:47:27too. One of the interesting things that just happened was between recordings here, just to
00:47:34let everybody in on how this works, we use this app called Riverside and you have to stop and
00:47:38start recording every time you want to change devices. So we have to stop each time. So I get
00:47:42to hear the natural audio coming out of your Mac. And there was music playing that I didn't really
00:47:47hear on the AirPods. There was more noise than I expected that I wasn't really hearing on the
00:47:50AirPods. I'm hearing all of that now.
00:47:52Interesting. There's no cancellation whatsoever.
00:47:56Almost. I mean, there's some. And it's like, it's coming and going. It's kind of like they're
00:48:01raising and lowering the volume as time goes on. And your voice sounds fine. It's like it's picking
00:48:08up more of everything. So I'm actually like, your voice is a little richer than I was hearing
00:48:13through the AirPods. But so is the background noise.
00:48:18Not great. But I guess that's a trade-off. I'm getting smaller
00:48:22and lighter and they're even further away from my mouth when I'm talking, obviously. So it's
00:48:26harder to kind of separate voice from background noise. But these also have like clear calling on
00:48:32phone calls, which again, you can't do on like video chats, unfortunately. So like,
00:48:36it should be a little bit better when you're actually talking to someone on the phone.
00:48:39But if you're in a coffee shop, this is what you're going to get.
00:48:44You know, this makes me think of, do you ever, do you ever do the thing where you're wearing
00:48:46noise cancelling headphones, like over the ear noise cancelling headphones, and you just kind of
00:48:50take them on and off your ears and you can sort of hear it pulse the noise in and outside.
00:48:55It feels a little like that as you're talking. It's like, it's sort of constantly
00:49:00picking up and letting go of the background noise in a way that is like, it works,
00:49:05but it's also like a little unnerving as I'm listening to it. I think if I was just holding
00:49:08up my phone to my head, it wouldn't really bother me, but I'm on like pretty good headphones in a
00:49:13pretty good situation here. And it is like, I'm hearing stuff that I was not hearing with the
00:49:17AirPods. Yeah. It's really interesting. So yeah, this is, we're going to give Google like a, like
00:49:23a gently passing grade. I would say this is not like a disaster. I can hear you, but I can safely
00:49:30already say Google is not going to win this. They do look good though. They're super small in your
00:49:37ears. That's, it's really nice. And they're, they seem very comfortable from what I saw in your
00:49:43review. Yeah. They still got that Mentos look, which is what it is, but yeah, you can barely
00:49:48see them in your ears anymore, which is nice. Yeah. When you're head on, I can, I can basically
00:49:51not see them at all. That's really cool. All right. Let's switch to the next one. Let's do,
00:49:56uh, I don't know. You pick surprise me. What are we doing? Uh, let's do Samsung.
00:50:00Okay. The big three out of the way. Yeah. I love it. All right. Let's switch.
00:50:08All right. Samsung Buds. How are we doing? These are the Buds 3 Pro. They have stems
00:50:13just like the AirPods Pro do. So hopefully that makes them a little bit crisper, clearer. Oh my,
00:50:19that was loud. I didn't hear that at all. This is okay. This is the opposite of what we just
00:50:25heard from Google. This is, this is actually super fun. I'm glad we did this in this order
00:50:28because basically the AirPods are the middle. Google is all the way at the end of the spectrum
00:50:34of like, let's make this sound kind of as natural as possible, even if it means getting noise in
00:50:38and you are just compressed to within an inch of your life, but there is no background noise.
00:50:44Like it, it is, it sounds like you are in a silent room. Yeah. It's super loud. Someone's
00:50:48like something dishes and stuff over there. So if you can't hear that, that's impressive.
00:50:52Do I sound like intelligible though? Intelligible? Yes. You almost don't sound like yourself. Uh,
00:51:00like it, it sort of sounds like if you, if you like held up a pillow to your mouth and then had
00:51:05a phone call, like that's kind of what you sound like right now. I can hear everything you're
00:51:09saying, but I mean, it is, it, you are processed to death. But again, I, I cannot overstate the
00:51:16extent to which I'm not hearing anything but your voice right now. That's kind of wild actually.
00:51:22Ah, that's fun. Uh, yeah, it's been pretty good so far for my voice calls and talking to people.
00:51:27I've heard like similar feedback to that, that I sound processed, but clear. So yeah.
00:51:32And this is, this is, this is a fun test case because, uh, normally with these headphones,
00:51:37at least my experience has been that they process your voice less when they're having to process
00:51:42less background noise. So in theory, when you're in like a perfectly quiet space,
00:51:47they should all sound better. Right. Uh, but they'll sound worse in worse. So we tried to
00:51:52pick, this is a pretty good, like normal-ish use case to like test them, but not overly so. Uh,
00:52:00but yeah, this is, this is solid. I take this over Google 10 times out of 10. Like it's just more
00:52:06pleasant to listen to you, even though you don't sound amazing, just because there's not
00:52:10that kind of rollercoaster volume of background noise.
00:52:14Interesting. And there was a lot of noise at the beginning of that. That's,
00:52:17that's nice. Uh, but yeah, these are, these are great. They sound really nice.
00:52:21They have lights on the stems, so you can have them light up when you're talking to people.
00:52:25You know, these are the ones that Samsung just went full AirPods, right? Like they just,
00:52:28they just did AirPods, but like the Samsung way. Yeah. So I don't even mean that as an insult.
00:52:33Like it just is what it is. That's just what Samsung does. Yeah. Uh, yeah. In terms of like,
00:52:39pleasant to listen to and wear all day, which has been your favorite of the bunch.
00:52:43If you're going to just like do your life wearing headphones, do you have a favorite?
00:52:48I'd probably say it's a tie between these and the pixel buds. Honestly, those are newer. So I'm
00:52:56still just getting used to those, but these I've used a ton and, uh, you know, they feel like
00:52:59AirPods pro, you know, they're stable, they fit well, they sound really nice. Uh, they do all the
00:53:05little Samsung ecosystem tricks. So, uh, they're not super original, but at this point they're all
00:53:12the same, but yeah. Okay. Yeah. I hear that. You can hear me very clearly. I'm impressed. Yeah.
00:53:19Like you sound very clear, but you don't sound very good. And if I have to make that trade,
00:53:22I'll make that trade. You know what I mean? Like I'd love to have it both ways, but I will,
00:53:25I will pick this over the alternative. All right, let's, let's switch. Let's do,
00:53:30uh, let's do Bose next. You tell me. Yeah, let's do it. All right. Let's switch.
00:53:38All right. Boze time. How are we doing?
00:53:41With a brand new, quiet comfort here for those second generation, you're already laughing.
00:53:46That's not a good, was I just very loud in your ears just then you look startled as I said something.
00:53:51Okay.
00:53:52Okay.
00:54:18I don't, I don't want to be hyperbolic here.
00:54:20This is awful. It's so bad. This is the first time I can't understand some of the words that
00:54:28you're saying. Um, and, and again, I wonder if an experience I've had, so I have a pair of Bose's
00:54:34like over ear quiet comforts and the, the impression that I get every time I use them is
00:54:39kind of what I was saying before that the mic is, it's never good, but it's fine when there's not a
00:54:45lot of noise. But Bose seems to so aggressively prioritize noise cancellation over audio quality
00:54:51that when you get into bad sound, it will just destroy everything else in the name of noise
00:54:56cancellation. So I'm guessing you're sitting there and it's like not very loud to you and
00:55:00it all sounds fine. It's, it's, it's just ruining it. Yeah. Uh, it's doing a decent job of suppressing
00:55:09the background noise. It's actually like, it's better now than it was when we started, which is
00:55:14interesting. It's like, it's, it took the processing a minute to like figure it out,
00:55:17but it seems to have cut a bunch of the background noise. Uh, but you sound like trash.
00:55:26Yeah, this is, this is not the one to take a zoom call in a coffee shop with that is like,
00:55:31basically the, the two reasons we do this test are like, are you the worst if you're on a video
00:55:36call with these and you know, grand theories about how we talk to AI and all that stuff.
00:55:40Like I really do believe microphones matter. This one will fail at both of those tests and
00:55:44I feel very confident about that. Yikes. Okay. Well, they're better than everything else.
00:55:50Yeah. These are good listening headphones. Like Bose, Bose makes very good headphones to listen
00:55:55to. Uh, please don't call me from these headphones ever again. All right. Let's,
00:56:02let's get off this one as quickly as we can. Yeah. Let's, let's go to the next one. What
00:56:05are you doing next? Uh, let's do the nothings, the funky open ones. Sweet. Love it.
00:56:11All right. Nothing. The nothing you're open. That's what they're called, right? How we do
00:56:20this. Yeah. At least the first call I've actually, uh, had on these period. So
00:56:26it's an honor experience for us both. I kind of like how those look in your ears. I have to say
00:56:32it's a little, it's there. They're a little more like deliberately space agey than anything else
00:56:37you've tried. They've got the, the sort of ear hook, uh, and slate. Yeah. They just,
00:56:43they just look like you're wearing some kind of futuristic star Trekkie headset. Uh, which is not
00:56:48the worst thing in the world. Uh, some people love this for like bike riding and that kind of,
00:56:54those kinds of activities. Uh, I'm not an open earbuds guy, but I can see the appeal.
00:56:58Like I, I can hear everything in this room right now. That's just kind of absurd. So like you
00:57:02sound pretty quiet compared to like all this racket. But how does the voice quality compare?
00:57:08Pretty solid. Actually, I would put this kind of right in the AirPods range. I'm getting
00:57:15a little bit of the background noise. Like I can tell you're in a coffee shop,
00:57:18unlike the Samsung's where it was like truly just deathly quiet. Uh, I can, it's clear you're
00:57:25somewhere, but I'm only catching kind of bits and pieces of the background noise. Like I can tell
00:57:31there's a, there's a woman talking somewhere near you, but I'm only catching like snippets,
00:57:36like syllables of it instead of like the whole conversation. Uh, and I can hear you pretty
00:57:41clearly actually this I'm, I'm, I'm sort of impressed by these. I'm not sure what the mics
00:57:45are on this particular, like there's like a stem that runs down the ears. So who knows,
00:57:50but they're pretty funky. They're fun. They're interesting. Uh, but it's good to know if you're
00:57:54going to make phone calls on your bike or wherever you might be or in these, uh, people will be able
00:58:00to understand you. I'm getting so many looks now at this coffee shop. Being that guy who I meet
00:58:06every day. We'll, we'll, we'll only keep you a couple more minutes. I promise. But I think the
00:58:12part of the reason I'm interested in these is like you, I hear from people all the time who
00:58:16are like, yeah, I'm trying to do more phone calls while I'm walking. Right. It's just like, like I
00:58:21work from home. Now I sit in my basement all day and I'm trying to do more of that too. Just get
00:58:25out. And it's like, Oh, we're going to talk for a half hour. I'm going to just wander around the
00:58:28neighborhood for a half hour. Uh, and that's one reason that a open ear is useful. Like, I think
00:58:33for this particular case in a coffee shop, open ear headphones are actually the wrong answer.
00:58:37So like for this purpose, you probably wouldn't use these even though they sound okay. Uh, but
00:58:42for like general sort of day to day life, like it's the same reason I like the, the Rabin meta
00:58:48smart glasses, right? Like I can just sort of have a conversation into my sunglasses in a way that
00:58:53sort of works. Uh, and I feel like this is appealing to me for the same reason and they
00:58:57sound pretty good. It's not, it's not the best one, but it is, it's kind of right in that
00:59:02sweet spot middle with the AirPods that I'm sort of impressed with.
00:59:06Okay. Good to know. Uh, should I switch back to the AirPods for the conclusion or?
00:59:11Yeah, let's, let's switch back now that I've heard all of them,
00:59:13let's go back to the AirPods and we can, we can, we can pick a favorite here.
00:59:16Let's do it.
00:59:16All right.
00:59:22All right. So we're back on the AirPods four.
00:59:25Mm hmm. We are. And he still sounds pretty serviceable.
00:59:30Yeah, this, it's such a boring answer, but I think of this round, this is actually probably
00:59:35my favorite. I think the, there's a little more background noise here than there was on the
00:59:41nothings, but it's also a little less, I'm realizing like a little bit of consistent
00:59:47background noise is actually less annoying than kind of background noise. Yeah. It's like,
00:59:54this, you just kind of have that low tone behind you all the time. And so it's actually easier for
00:59:58me to pick out your voice. Whereas like the pixel bloods, which kept coming in and out,
01:00:02were like giving me a headache trying to figure out what was going on. Uh, but I'm curious,
01:00:07Eric Gomez, our producer. Hi, Eric is here. Hello. You have been listening to and making all
01:00:13of this work. What do you make of all of this? You're the, you're the audio expert here.
01:00:16Definitely impressed by the, uh, Samsung, but the quality is, yes, it's being squished
01:00:24and compressed to death, but at least you're not picking up anything, uh, going on in the
01:00:29background at all. And it's pretty, um, you know, it's, it's clear enough and it's coherent
01:00:34enough to be able to have a good conversation. And I'm really surprised by, uh, the pixel
01:00:40bloods. They're just not aggressive. Yeah. Yeah. I'm really disappointed in that.
01:00:47Um, you know, I, I think, uh, Google did a good job in terms of hardware this, this round, but
01:00:54I'm just a little disappointed by the quality of the mic on that, on these pixel buds.
01:00:57I do wonder, I mean, well, she mentioned that they're smaller and thus just further away from
01:01:03your mouth. And I wonder at some point if that just be is like an insurmountable physics problem,
01:01:08like the, the things with stems tend to be better because they have stems, like,
01:01:13it just seems to be a fact. I mean, so, I mean, I don't want to see everybody do stems. So it'd
01:01:18be boring. Uh, so I hope they can find a way to like, you know, like use machine learning or AI
01:01:21or whatnot to like find some way to fix this problem. Uh, maybe the pixel bloods will sound
01:01:26better on like phone calls with clear tall line. Like so far, I haven't gotten too many complaints
01:01:30there. So that might, that might make a difference versus just like just overall audio mode. Um,
01:01:35but yeah, it's clearly that, uh, that Samsung and Apple are kind of the head honchos here and, uh,
01:01:42the rest of kind of okay at best. Yeah. Yeah. The w the winner for most improved is Samsung
01:01:48for sure. I think the last time we did this, I think Samsung came in last and it was, it was
01:01:52the one that was like borderline unintelligible. Uh, and, and I think Samsung here is either
01:01:59in first or second place, depending on just kind of what you like. Like the, the thing for me of
01:02:04that sort of eerie, quiet, super compressed just doesn't sound as good as what I'm hearing now from
01:02:10the AirPods, which just feels a little more natural. It's like, if I were sitting across
01:02:13from you at a coffee shop, that's what it would sound like. But I can also understand that if
01:02:18what's clear is also, if there is one that you were going to trust in awful situations to keep
01:02:22you intelligible, it's probably the galaxy buds, right? Eric, is that, is that your takeaway here?
01:02:27Yeah. I would have to agree with that. They're like the worst case scenario buds. Yeah. Don't,
01:02:33don't use them. Good to know for the future, whenever I'm stranded somewhere and I carry
01:02:36around like several pairs of earbuds at all times. So it's nice to know that those are the ones don't,
01:02:41don't call nine one one with those buds. Yeah. Yeah. They'll be like, it's fine. You can't hear
01:02:47anything. Um, all right, good. Well, we we've, we've done it. I just, I would love for somebody
01:02:52to just like blow my mind here. That's that's everyone's charge for next time. It's just like,
01:02:56do slightly better. We're still at a point where the, the Ray-Ban meta ones are the like
01:03:01best sounding ones we've tested maybe in the history of this segment on the verge cast.
01:03:07Still haven't ever tried those myself, but I want one of those Nick clear colors.
01:03:10They look awesome. Glasses look awesome. Yeah. Um, I have two pairs now and I don't want one
01:03:16of them. So you can have one of my pairs. Uh, next time I'll, next time I'm in New York,
01:03:20I'll bring you my pair and you can, you can just have it. They look stupid on my face anyway. So
01:03:24we'll, we'll make it happen. I appreciate it. All right. We should take a break. Chris,
01:03:28thank you as always. Please apologize to everyone in the coffee shop for us.
01:03:31I will right now, as soon as I'm off here. Thank you.
01:03:37All right. We've got to take one more break and then we're going to do a question for the
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01:07:16All right, we're back. Let's get to the hotline. As always, the number is 866-VERGE-11. The email
01:07:21is vergecast at theverge.com. You can hit me up personally on threads or on signal. We try to
01:07:26answer at least one hotline question on the show every week. And actually, I think we're due for
01:07:31a full hotline episode. We've gotten a lot of fun stuff. We're in deep gadget season right now,
01:07:36so we've gotten a lot of gadget questions. We'll probably get to all of those at some point in the
01:07:41very near future. But for now, we have a question that feels so, so very Vergecast-y. Let's hear it.
01:07:47Hey, Vergecast. This is Jeff from North Carolina. I was listening to your latest episode on Meta's
01:07:53new glasses. And I'm wondering, I remember, I believe it was Scott Galloway made a comment
01:07:59that any product that you're wearing on your body that makes you less attractive
01:08:04will never succeed. I'm wondering if you think with the Vision Pro and then now the
01:08:09Meta Smart Glasses, this will apply that if you don't look cool in them, no one's going to buy
01:08:14them. Love the show. Thanks very much. Bye. All right. There's only one person on earth
01:08:20who can answer this question. The Scott Galloway of the Vergecast, I call him sometimes.
01:08:24Brutal. Brutal.
01:08:27Why would you invite me here to insult me to my face?
01:08:32Hey, buddy.
01:08:33This is my own show.
01:08:36I didn't even prepare you for this. You didn't even get to listen to this ahead of time. This
01:08:39was just, this is everything I wanted.
01:08:41Hey, would you like to walk into your own house and be slapped in the face?
01:08:46Amazing.
01:08:47So I love this question for two reasons. One, because I think it's a good question. And two,
01:08:51because it threatens the very core of Nilay Patel's theory of wearable bullshit, which is
01:08:56just, this just says, actually, it doesn't even matter if it doesn't make you look cool. It's
01:09:01out. So I want to know your thoughts on this particular take with these devices.
01:09:06Well, you will recall that the matrix of wearable bullshit has a minus 100 face penalty.
01:09:14Right.
01:09:14Which is basically what we're talking about here. Because you can put all kinds of stuff
01:09:19on your body that makes you look uncool. People wear fanny packs all day long.
01:09:24Fair.
01:09:24Just walking around. They're not even wearing them on their fannies, from what I'm told.
01:09:28Yeah, they're slings now.
01:09:29Yeah. It's watches. Incredibly subjective fashion choices.
01:09:33True.
01:09:34Clothing itself. Shoes. The way people talk about shoes in this world.
01:09:40All kinds of ideas about things you put on your body. It's really just,
01:09:44do you have it on your face that sets people aflame? Right? That's the thing we're talking
01:09:49about here. Is it on your face? Is it in your way? And the matrix of wearable bullshit is
01:09:56fiddliness versus utility. And then there's just this big penalty for face somewhere in there that
01:10:02brings you way below the line. And then you have to offer vastly more utility to get back above the
01:10:08line so that people wear it every day. Regular glasses on your face. They take the penalty,
01:10:13but they're pretty useful to most people. So they come back up. And now, over decades,
01:10:19we've turned glasses into fashion accessories. We've made this choice.
01:10:24That's the thing that I keep thinking about thinking about this. Because there's basically
01:10:28two ways to look at this. One is, these things will never be cool. And the only way they're
01:10:34ever going to work is if we make them so phenomenally useful that it doesn't matter.
01:10:39Right? And I feel like, I don't know, wired headphones is probably a good example of that.
01:10:44Right? I don't know that a pair of earpods is cool. But they're simple, and they're useful,
01:10:50and we all just kind of gut over it. Right? That crossed the threshold with utility, not with cool.
01:10:56The other option is that in some way, someone figures out how to make these things
01:11:02actually objectively cool. And then it flips. Right? In glasses, some people like how they
01:11:09look in glasses better than how they look without glasses. That's a real thing. We have made them
01:11:13a fashion object. And that seems like a much harder road for any kind of technology,
01:11:20but is maybe the actually most effective way to get there is just make them objectively cool.
01:11:25Figure out how to make it iconically awesome to have ski goggles on your face,
01:11:29and then none of the rest of it even matters. But this is, I think, what Apple tried with
01:11:33the Vision Pro. They tried to make it cool, and it fell on its face because it just can't be.
01:11:39It just isn't. There are some ski goggles that look cool. I've certainly seen sweet pictures
01:11:47of 80s people wearing ski goggles. They look cool as hell. Have you ever seen the movie
01:11:53Ski School? Highly recommended. Anyway, my point is, one, you should watch Ski School. Two,
01:12:00even the people who think they look better in glasses that don't,
01:12:05have not created enough of a market for clear glasses. There's a little bit of a market for
01:12:10clear glasses, like non-prescription clear glasses that you just wear as a fashion accessory. A
01:12:16little bit. But it's as a signifier. It's part of another outfit. It's supposed to be part of
01:12:22another vibe that you're sending out. Not just, I wear these every day, all day, like my shoes.
01:12:28Right. As pure fashion statement, there's not much there.
01:12:31So you just, I think for a tech product, you need to vastly increase the utility of the thing. Like
01:12:37AirPods, they're so useful, and I care about them so much, and they provide me so much value every
01:12:41single day as a product that I will overcome the fact that they're in my ears all the time,
01:12:47and people can see them because they're white. And like, regular over-the-ear headphones are
01:12:52fashion statements in different ways, right? They look different. There's different ways
01:12:56you can style them. There's different ways you can wear them. Remember when Beats came out?
01:13:00The Beats were not the best-sounding headphones. Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre had one idea for what
01:13:06headphones should sound like, and it was super bass-heavy. And they were a fashion statement
01:13:10at first, because they came in all the colors. They were the first headphones to really push
01:13:14that idea, and they were a phenomenon in their time just for that. I think with smart glasses,
01:13:21yep, you've got to make the form factor smaller. Yep, they've got to look more like regular
01:13:27glasses. You've got to bring the fiddliness way down and the value way up. They've got to be able
01:13:32to do more things. And then somewhere in there, you might overcome the penalty of it being on
01:13:38your face. But I still think that the core tenet holds, which is, if it's really, really useful,
01:13:44people will get over the fiddliness. And part of fiddliness is like, is this shit on my face?
01:13:50And whether or not you want to interpret that in the Galloway fashion of, does this make me more
01:13:55attractive? It is up to you to decide if that is the type of utility you desire from a product.
01:14:02Fair. And I guess, to be fair, Post Malone is out here being like, you know what?
01:14:06Face tattoos. Right. Listen, some things are attractive to some people,
01:14:12accounting for taste. No one is attracted to the Vision Pro, I think is basically
01:14:17the only true statement I can make at this particular moment in time.
01:14:20Yeah, that's fair.
01:14:22Okay, so the 100-point deductible is on a scale that-
01:14:26Deduction.
01:14:26It's an Apple-
01:14:27It's not like a tax return.
01:14:29Right, I apologize. The 100-point deduction is like, it's Apple chart crime. It's out of nothing.
01:14:36But what I wonder is, have we not hit it enough? Like, should it be a 200-point deduction? Like,
01:14:43I am starting to think that this thing might be harder to surmount even than I had thought.
01:14:48Because even like, I look at the Orion glasses, which are smaller and much closer to being normal
01:14:53glasses, and then somebody puts them on their face, and they still look kind of stupid. Like,
01:14:56they're cool because they're cool technology, whatever, but like, in no way are they like,
01:15:01cool-looking glasses. And that is like, the bleeding edge of the bleeding edge of where
01:15:05we are in terms of being able to make these things awesome. Like, should we be dinging
01:15:10these things harder for their face-wearing issues for the foreseeable future?
01:15:16Well, I would say one of the most fiddly things about the Orion is that you need to work at
01:15:21Facebook and apparently have $10,000 in order to have one.
01:15:23Yeah, it's pretty fiddly.
01:15:25It's very fiddly. Like, whether or not it's on your face, like, doesn't matter.
01:15:29Like, it's a product you can't buy. You need to grow crystal lenses in the basement of your
01:15:34underground Hawaiian lair, apparently, to have them. Very fiddly. Like, you're just in the hole,
01:15:39and then you're a little bit further in the hole. I think a better example is the Ray-Ban
01:15:42glasses that Meta is doing, where their utility is not that high, right? Like,
01:15:48they can take some photos, they can do some AI stuff. People actually like the photos. People
01:15:53like listening to music on them. But they're not very fiddly.
01:15:58That is true.
01:15:59They're just Ray-Bans.
01:16:00They're mostly glasses. Yeah.
01:16:02And so they can overcome the face penalty because their fiddliness is so low,
01:16:09right? And then you get whatever utility you get out of it, and they kind of just curve
01:16:12right back up to glasses. Maybe a little bit under regular glasses because they
01:16:17have a little more fiddliness to them, but I think they're just on the same curve as
01:16:22regular glasses, which also take the 100-point face fiddliness deduction.
01:16:26Right. I'm going to be so interested to see how the clear ones end up doing in the real world,
01:16:30that limited edition one that they came out with, because my Threads algorithm is filled
01:16:36with people who are obsessed with it. My Threads algorithm is also filled with nerds.
01:16:40And it's also owned, I would point out, by Meta.
01:16:42It is also owned by Meta. That's a very good point. So I have a pair here that are essentially
01:16:49indistinguishable from normal Wayfarers. You would never look at me twice wearing them. They
01:16:54just look like Wayfarers. That is a huge victory. I think the clear ones look a little more like
01:16:58gadgets. And so I think how those sort of percolate out into the world is going to be
01:17:04really interesting because there is this, all the way at the other end of that spectrum is
01:17:08Google Glass, which was the gadgetiest gadget of all time.
01:17:11And also offered almost no utility. Everyone forgets this about Google Glass.
01:17:16You had a little display in your face that was not very useful at all.
01:17:19No, it told you you had a text message. My phone buzzes when that happens.
01:17:23You were just in the hole. It would be like, turn left. It's like when you were doing Google
01:17:27Glass. And none of this is useful at all. So the real thing that I think the Ray-Bans have
01:17:34accomplished is they've gotten closer to the curve of regular glasses.
01:17:40What's really interesting is the clear ones you're talking about have the next generation
01:17:44of transitions lenses in them, Gen S they're called, which are supposed to go from sunglasses
01:17:49to clear much faster than before. And the idea is that that will make you want to wear them all the
01:17:55time. I don't know. Are people going to buy these things that look like Wayfarers and then just
01:18:02wear them around their office because they're getting so much value out of wearing the meta
01:18:07Ray-Bans? And I think the answer is no. I think you're still on the same curve as just regular
01:18:10sunglasses. So we'll see. I think that's the most successful of these products because they've
01:18:17gotten to the same sort of value equation as a regular set of sunglasses.
01:18:22Yeah, I think that's right. And that's a good example of, I don't know that
01:18:27your sunglasses generally make you look cooler and more attractive, but they are useful and they look
01:18:33good.
01:18:33I think historically in the history of culture, people have thought sunglasses make them look
01:18:38cool and attractive.
01:18:39No, they just make you mysterious because nobody can see what you're looking at.
01:18:42Yeah. Sexy and dangerous.
01:18:45How do you feel about your sunglasses?
01:18:47I'm just saying, I think this is how most people feel about sunglasses.
01:18:52That's fair. So maybe we're onto something here that there's maybe the new, the whatever seventh
01:18:59dimension of the theory of wearable bullshit.
01:19:03I think I'm down to just two. It's two and the face deduction.
01:19:07But there's also like a sexiness quotient.
01:19:10No, I disagree to all too subjective. It's fiddliness versus utility and then face.
01:19:16So do we put sexiness under utility is one of the utility,
01:19:20like a possible utility? Just, it makes me look hot as a hell.
01:19:23Yeah. Perceived utility. It's all, it's all in there, which is why face is such a
01:19:28way to space a fiddly faces utility deduction.
01:19:31Okay. I think that's right.
01:19:32No, it's a fiddly deduction. Face is very fiddly.
01:19:34I'm never going to get this right.
01:19:37It just depends on which axis is which, whichever one brings you down below that curve,
01:19:42like hard. And then you've got to like, you've got to pay it off with utility.
01:19:46So it is a, it is a utility deduction.
01:19:49Okay.
01:19:50Right. You put it on your face. You suddenly need to deliver vastly more utility to get
01:19:54back above the curve.
01:19:55Right. And one of those utilities can be sexy.
01:19:58Looking hot. Yeah.
01:20:00All right. There we go. We've solved it. And as always, if you listeners can figure out how to
01:20:05graph this for us, please, dear God, we'll let you sponsor the lightning round for free.
01:20:10I just mentioned it before. So there's regular glasses. This is the, the first thing to put on
01:20:16your chart is regular glasses, which are quite fiddly, especially if you need them to see the
01:20:22fact that if you lose them, you can no longer see is really quite fiddly.
01:20:26Like you got to keep them clean. You can't lose them. You don't want to scratch them. You got to,
01:20:30you got to wear them all the time. Very fiddly utility off the chart.
01:20:35You're, you're, you're way above the curve of success on this, on this, whatever quadrant
01:20:39chart we're doing. AirPods also in the chart, a good thing to graph, right? People like them,
01:20:44but they make you look like you have AirPods in your ears. Apple watch a first gen versus
01:20:48the current gen first. So fiddly. Yep. Not a lot of utility.
01:20:53So fiddly below the curve. And they, they, they evened it out to where they are now.
01:20:58So like, that's the chart, right? You just gotta, if you're going to put something on your body,
01:21:01it's gotta be so useful. It's worth the time and attention. And then you've got face, face deduction,
01:21:11face deduction is the title of the face penalty.
01:21:16All right. We did it. Neal. I thank you as always.
01:21:19I'm still mad about the Scott Galloway thing. I want to be very clear with this.
01:21:23All right. That is it for the birdcasts. Thank you to everybody who was on the show today. And
01:21:26thank you as always for listening. There's lots more on everything. We talked about all of Jen's
01:21:30coverage of matter and thread and the video doorbell. She actually wrote about a smart door
01:21:36just yesterday. Great stuff. All that is on the website. All of Chris's reviews of these various
01:21:41headphones are on the website. I think the, the wearable theory is mostly a birdcast thing.
01:21:47So, you know, keep it locked here for all of the updates on Neal's insane wearables theory that
01:21:54basically doesn't make any sense. And if you have thoughts, questions, or feelings, or anything else
01:22:00you want to talk about other headphones, you want us to try other ways to put terrible audio
01:22:03on the verge cast. You can always email us at verge cast at the verge.com or call the hotline
01:22:08We love hearing from you. Please keep all your questions coming. This show is produced by Liam
01:22:11James, Will poor, and Eric Gomez. The verge cast is verge production and part of the Vox
01:22:16media podcast network. Neal, I, Alex, and I will be back on Friday to talk about all the weird
01:22:21stuff going on in open AI. Cause that keeps happening. Some strange lawsuit stuff with
01:22:26Epic and Google and Samsung and a whole bunch of other stuff. See you then rock and roll.